Hmm, Comcast must have a problem systemwide. Sunday night, the last thing I watched was Cinemax. Monday morning, that was in black. When I tried to change channels, I got the initial cablecard screen saying call Comcast. Oddly, the other cablecard was working. So, like a fool, I power cycled the TiVo. Now both cards won't work. They get everything but the premiums. Called Comcast - 30 minute hold -- She told me to pull the cards and put them back in while she did something there. Several somethings there and no joy. So they are rolling a truck -- NEXT MONDAY. Looking at the card diagnostics, it looks like they are not talking to the head end. But I will have to wait what seems like forever.

Sigh.

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Part 2. Technician came out today. Tried two different m cards. Neither of which would work - the TiVo thought they were both s cards. He said that at least 14 others are having problems. All 4 supervisors are involved. He could not get anything to work so he put both of the original s cards back in. I am back to everything but premium channels.
CCI code is 0x02. I'm thinking they changed that starting June 1 and that's what killed the cards.

I would think that 0x02 is what they were supposed to 'increase' the copy protection to on the premium channels here on the Sarasota head-end, but they misinterpreted that and changed them to 0x03.

Update 6/10: This indeed appears to be the case... A couple of responses yesterday from the we_can_help group, and this morning the bytes on the premium channels are back where they should be (and were)...0x02. Thanks to those concerned

I recently found out when trying to record a show on SpeedHD that the station is not coming through...it just shows up as blank. As a matter of fact, the same thing happens on Speed's standard def station as well. Now I know that Speed is included with my package. I called Comcast Sunday night and after sending a signal through to my TV and no improvement, they declared it must be a problem with my CableCard. They offered to set up a service visit or said I could bring the card back to the local customer care center five minutes from the house. I hate the thought of sitting around the house for four hours for a service call, but I'm also hesitant to pop the card out and exchange it for fear I'll have a problem bringing the new card back up. Besides, it seems to me that this is a programming issue on Comcast's part. I could understand if there were a whole range of stations not coming through that it might be a defective card (which has worked fine since I got it in December), but given that it's just one station and both its high def and standard def feeds makes me suspicious. What's the opinion on what I should do...bring the card back and exchange it? Call in a tech? Bug customer service some more?

I'll tell you what happened. After calling customer service once again, they told me that Speed was in the sports package now and I'd have to pay an extra eight bucks a month. I asked when the change took effect and they said its always been in the sports tier (two minutes earlier, they told me it was supposed to be included in my regular digital package.) I knew that was crap because I've never paid for the sports package and I still have Speed programming that I haven't watched on my TiVo! At that point, I told them I wanted to cancel my service....and I was ready to. I'm sick of being nickle and dimed by these guys. So they agreed to knock the price down to three bucks a month for 12 months (I'm on another 12-month promotional rate anyhow) and issued a $25 credit to my account for not informing me of the programming change. That brought my monthly cost down to less than a buck. I was willing to live with that because I like hockey and the sports package also includes the NHL Network. So as I suspected, it was a programming change. Glad I didn't take that CableCard over to the service center this afternoon.

Bit the bullet and bought a HD Tivo due to the digital upgrade in the SF Bay Area (Just didn't want to bother with the IR blasters and a box)

Stopped by the local Comcast office to pick up the M Card on the way home yesterday. Hooked the new Tivo up, did the guided setup, forced it to call home again about an hour later to get the latest software updates.

Once that was done I took a deep breath and prepared for the dreaded cable card insert. Followed the written and on screen directions and called the Comcast number. Gave the tech the required configuration numbers and waited. Fifteen minutes later, it worked. Holy cow, no problems.

Stayed up later than I should have playing with my new toy and coping over my old season passes.

Thanks to the early adopters, my setup went like a breeze.

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May I ask where in the U.S. you are?

/barging into this thread way late:
whew...this is one long thread...if you start at the beginning.....no way do you want to mess with this issue...but perhaps time has made it better...I don't know.

I have been told by 1-800-COMCAST to go to my local Comcast office to pick up cable cards and I should have no trouble bringing them home and installing myself...is this really possible? I live in northern Chicago.

Let me add one more post to the 'Comcast cares' group with our recent CCI snafu. The problem was fixed in a reasonable amount of time, and I even got a follow up call from our local support group making sure everything was working, and explaining the situation in more detail.

For all the complaints and problems, once you talk to the right people, the problems do seem to get corrected.

Let me add one more post to the 'Comcast cares' group with our recent CCI snafu. The problem was fixed in a reasonable amount of time, and I even got a follow up call from our local support group making sure everything was working, and explaining the situation in more detail.

For all the complaints and problems, once you talk to the right people, the problems do seem to get corrected.

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And that's the problem. The "right people" are outnumbered by the "totally incompetent people" by about 10 to 1. I don't think people feel Comcast doesn't "care". I think people just think Comcast is incompetent and poorly managed.

I do agree that once you get things going it's a very reliable service. I rarely ever get a hiccup. But I sure wouldn't want to go though the initial setup and ordering process again any time soon.

All new customer service people should be required to intern with the Comcast Cares group so they have an opportunity to learn how to actually help solve problems instead of learning how to read scripts.

So last week after making a programming change, by cablecard stopped receiving channels. See my previous posts for details, but the short version is after about 3 hours on the phone, several e-mails to ComcastCares I finally found one person at Comcast who not only knew what the issue was, but was able to fix it within 5 minutes.

Sometime yesterday (almost exactly a WEEK after the first incident) the problem reoccured. I called back, was able to quickly get the call escalated but the people who could fix it were already gone for the day, so now I'm again waiting and hoping somone can fix it today.

I already know someone is going to suggest we replace the cable card with a new one, but I just can't believe the cable card would just go "bad" on it's own. Does this really happen? Is it just a coincidence that exactly one week after the problem first occured (almost to the exact hour and minute) it re-occurs ?? Sounds like a billing system issue to me.

I guess we'll find out today if Comcast really cares or not. I wasn't all that impressed with their response last week, it was only my persistent phone calls that finally put me in touch with the right department to fix it, hopefully the case was documented on my account so I dont' have to go through that all again this week.

SO I was told by Comcast that in my area they still using single stream cards. They told me they charge nothing for single stream cards. So if I switch from FIOS TV to Comcast TV my eight cards I need will cost zero.
Is this actually true? They also said when you have a multistream card they only charge around $2 for each card after the first one.
Is this info they told me correct?

Could be. They claim the first card is free and additional ones are around $2 each on their site and in their info, but when I tried to get one/s, they told me they only had s cards, and would charge $8 each (so needless to say I didn't do it).

SO I was told by Comcast that in my area they still using single stream cards. They told me they charge nothing for single stream cards. So if I switch from FIOS TV to Comcast TV my eight cards I need will cost zero.
Is this actually true? They also said when you have a multistream card they only charge around $2 for each card after the first one.
Is this info they told me correct?

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I would get it confirmed, but yes, that is a charging strategy that some Comcast franchises use. I pay nothing for my pair of S-cablecards.

Note that you will probably have to pay for 3 additional outlet fees (first one is free), but that's a separate issue from the cablecards.

The $8 a piece for S-cablecards is wrong, and should be easily fought by appealing to higher up Comcast folks (such as Comcast cares).

I would get it confirmed, but yes, that is a charging strategy that some Comcast franchises use. I pay nothing for my pair of S-cablecards.

Note that you will probably have to pay for 3 additional outlet fees (first one is free), but that's a separate issue from the cablecards.

The $8 a piece for S-cablecards is wrong, and should be easily fought by appealing to higher up Comcast folks (such as Comcast cares).

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I made sure to tell them they will be hooked to one TV. Like I did before, I'll take the four TiVos and put them in one room. It makes it much faster and easier for the cable card install. They told me as long as I only had one Tv for the install it counts as one outlet even with four TiVos.
So after the installer leaves I'll just move the TiVos to the other two televisions.

The problem is now they are backed up on installs. They got a huge influx of installations because of the OTA digital switch today. So they can't do any new installs for a couple of weeks in my area.

I live in an apartment with two High Def Tivos, an S3 Ive had running for over 2 years and an HD-Tivo I got just a couple of months ago. They are in different rooms, with separate cable feeds from outside and have different types of cable cards. The S3 has two S cards and the HD has an M card. I have Comcast service close to San Jose, CA.

I have had ALL channels (at least those I watch) working FINE on my S3 for two years. When I installed the HD, that replaced a HRT-8000 (S2) Tivo, all channels also seemed to work fine.

In early May I noticed that I no longer have signal on 4 channels (again, out of those on my list). I verified this through the cablecard test menu on BOTH machines. ALL other channels are GREAT and have a nice, high signal strength listed (35dB). The no signal/missing channels are ESPN2HD (725), TNTHD (737) and two radio channels 960 and 962.

All I get when I tune to those channels is a Tivo bar saying, Searching for signal on: Cable In.  See Messages & Settings/Troubleshooting for Info.

Among things that are different between the working channels and the missing ones is that the modulation: on the Tivo Cablecard Diagnostics menu is stable at QAM 256 for the working channels but switches constantly between QAM 256 and QAM 64 for any of the missing ones.

As this happens on two entirely separate cable feeds (living room, bedroom), on two entirely different models of Tivo, set up years apart, with entirely different cable card types, and BOTH Tivo channel lists went wonky suddenly at the same time, I suggested to Comcast that theyd changed configuration in the infrastructure I was connected to.

Of course when I called I got a script-kitty. <sigh> Ive talked to Comcast several times over the weeks since and even took their suggestion to replace all three cards thinking some network update had trashed all threes cards in EXACTLY the same way.

Needless to say, the new cards worked no different and I got an agent who would not step through the Tivo advised installation sheet with me. Still, I think we got them paired fine.

Then I called the Tivo CableCard hot line and asked them if running Guided Setup again was necessary they said no. I AM beginning to wonder if I should do that just to be certain.

Convinced that there is NOTHING wrong inside my apartment, over the weekend I scheduled an appointment but had to argue with the agent who DEMANDED that I be present when the tech got here to check the signal strength outside so he could come inside and see if the problem might be there.

I called them back tonight to see what the result was, as my channels are still missing. They said the signal was OK (thats a technical term?) but they cancelled the ticket as I was not here to let the tech in so he could see that Im not LYING or an IDIOT! --- I dont have dead bodies stuffed behind the sofa or anything; Ive just spent TOO much time waiting on repair people over the years when it wasnt necessary!

I REALLY cant understand why the engineers at whatever they call the local facility that feeds my address cant look at some diagnostic screen, call me up and have me READ what the Tivo Cablecard diagnostic screens say and BLAST the RIGHT signal down the line.

So, they tell me my choices are to schedule another appointment so they can come inside and say, YUP, its just as the customer says! Uh Huh, Uh Huh!

Sorry for the long rant. Do you have any thoughts before I bend over and grease up for the Comcast tech? Can you think of ANYTHING that might be wrong inside my home? Should I run Guided Setup just to cover all bases?

I live in an apartment with two High Def Tivos, an S3 Ive had running for over 2 years and an HD-Tivo I got just a couple of months ago. They are in different rooms, with separate cable feeds from outside and have different types of cable cards. The S3 has two S cards and the HD has an M card. I have Comcast service close to San Jose, CA.

I have had ALL channels (at least those I watch) working FINE on my S3 for two years. When I installed the HD, that replaced a HRT-8000 (S2) Tivo, all channels also seemed to work fine.

In early May I noticed that I no longer have signal on 4 channels (again, out of those on my list). I verified this through the cablecard test menu on BOTH machines. ALL other channels are GREAT and have a nice, high signal strength listed (35dB). The no signal/missing channels are ESPN2HD (725), TNTHD (737) and two radio channels 960 and 962.

All I get when I tune to those channels is a Tivo bar saying, Searching for signal on: Cable In.  See Messages & Settings/Troubleshooting for Info.

Among things that are different between the working channels and the missing ones is that the modulation: on the Tivo Cablecard Diagnostics menu is stable at QAM 256 for the working channels but switches constantly between QAM 256 and QAM 64 for any of the missing ones.

As this happens on two entirely separate cable feeds (living room, bedroom), on two entirely different models of Tivo, set up years apart, with entirely different cable card types, and BOTH Tivo channel lists went wonky suddenly at the same time, I suggested to Comcast that theyd changed configuration in the infrastructure I was connected to.

Of course when I called I got a script-kitty. <sigh> Ive talked to Comcast several times over the weeks since and even took their suggestion to replace all three cards thinking some network update had trashed all threes cards in EXACTLY the same way.

Needless to say, the new cards worked no different and I got an agent who would not step through the Tivo advised installation sheet with me. Still, I think we got them paired fine.

Then I called the Tivo CableCard hot line and asked them if running Guided Setup again was necessary they said no. I AM beginning to wonder if I should do that just to be certain.

Convinced that there is NOTHING wrong inside my apartment, over the weekend I scheduled an appointment but had to argue with the agent who DEMANDED that I be present when the tech got here to check the signal strength outside so he could come inside and see if the problem might be there.

I called them back tonight to see what the result was, as my channels are still missing. They said the signal was OK (thats a technical term?) but they cancelled the ticket as I was not here to let the tech in so he could see that Im not LYING or an IDIOT! --- I dont have dead bodies stuffed behind the sofa or anything; Ive just spent TOO much time waiting on repair people over the years when it wasnt necessary!

I REALLY cant understand why the engineers at whatever they call the local facility that feeds my address cant look at some diagnostic screen, call me up and have me READ what the Tivo Cablecard diagnostic screens say and BLAST the RIGHT signal down the line.

So, they tell me my choices are to schedule another appointment so they can come inside and say, YUP, its just as the customer says! Uh Huh, Uh Huh!

Sorry for the long rant. Do you have any thoughts before I bend over and grease up for the Comcast tech? Can you think of ANYTHING that might be wrong inside my home? Should I run Guided Setup just to cover all bases?

Thanks for your patience.

Tim

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Tim, you should run, not walk, to your nearest email client and send this to We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com. Unless you simply get lucky, you aren't getting anywhere through normal channels.

I've been tweeting a bit today with Frank Eliason, the creator of @ComcastCares. He seems like a stand-up guy.

I think I'm going to invest ONE appointment through the standard support number to come let them see there's nothing to see or be accomplished inside, while also sending my post, edited a bit to tone down the bile, to the we_can_help addy and see if double-dipping might get the job done.

Thanks for the suggestion. You should get an award just for reading through my post to the end! ;<)

I have gone against the crowd all these years standing up for Comcast while others curse them, however I now see what people are talking about.
Picked up an M-Cable card at my local office (not that easily, but the details are not important here.)
I have called and called and can not get an agent who will escalate my call to get the proper initialization to the card. As a matter of fact, the last doofus pinged my cable box and deleted months worth of saved programs!
Comcast is insisting on sending a technician to initialize the card.
After reading thru this thread I am anticipating major problems.
I am livid that Comcast will not take care of this over the phone. There is nothing their tech can do that I would not be able to do with the right rep on the phone.

Anything on the short list I need to know to take total advantage of the technician's visit to my house tomorrow?